Well what a difference a week makes. The cold snap has finally arrived making the garden look amazing when the sun is out with the frost outlining each and every leaf and twig. Even in the depths of Winter the garden is still a thing of beauty.
Although it looks pretty, the cold can make things very tough for wildlife. Food is scarce and water sources can be frozen over. We can help by ensuring that we leave some fresh water out & food for birds that are often still fairly active at this time of year. Carries got some really good offers on at the moment to help you keep down the costs of keeping those feathered tummies full.
As I’m certainly not going to get out gardening at the moment I’m doing a bit of forward planning for the fruit and veggie garden. As with many of you my life is generally pretty hectic so I want reliable crops that will give me a good yield without taking up too much of my free time and that I’ll actually use.
Currants and Gooseberries are always easy – Many of the modern varieties are bred to be disease resistant so I’ll be doing a bit of research on those as I also want the best flavour – Information is always easy to get on-line or I can always go and rack one of our Plant managers brains - they’re a pretty knowledgeable bunch! I research varieties every year when buying for the centres but as it’s impossible to remember everything I need to gem up a bit again. I’ll be looking at the veggie seeds this week when I’m in the Garden Centres so I’ll let you know what I decide on next week.